


Euresis

by threewalls



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Banter, Community: trope_bingo, Episode Related, Episode: s03e12 Aletheia, F/F, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Mind Games, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-09 04:57:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1141697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shaw goes looking for Root, and finds her. Briefly. (Episode Tag for "Aletheia")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Euresis

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to Mec. For "mind games" for trope bingo (because that's Shaw and Root, always, right?)

After a shower, fresh clothes, fresh boots, fresh bullets, Shaw is back on the street.

Where's the first place you look when you've lost something? 

No point hitting up the safe house that wasn't, the one Control found them in coming up on twenty hours ago. Her former employers weren't that stupid.

Where would Shaw take Root, if Shaw still worked for ISA? 

Torture and interrogation can happen anywhere, anytime. 

If you had lots of resources, but not much time?

The higher up the food chain, the more in control you think you are. The more you think you know everything there is to know.

Not many safe houses out of sight of all surveillance cameras in the city. Shaw can spot three at this intersection without turning her head. 

Are you watching me? 

That's a question that Shaw doesn't have to waste breath voicing. 

"Do you know how to play "twenty questions"? Make the phone in my pocket vibrate for yes." 

Her phone's buzzing before Shaw's mouth has stopped hissing the "s" in yes. 

Shaw doesn't stop walking. If this works, she shouldn't need to. 

"Ok, first question: do you want me to find her?"

\---

Sixteen questions gets Shaw a hotel room. Up-market. Electronic locks. Shaw figures they're enough on the same page that the door won't be a problem.

But the door to room 854 just opens in front of her.

"Shaw, it is so good to see you," Root says.

She's standing under her own power, cut on her right cheek bone the only visible injury, different clothes than last time but still a black leather jacket. She's also smiling wide, as if there was someone else who might need to be convinced that they were normal people with normal friendly people reactions to each other.

"Come on in."

Shower's dry. Sink's wet. Wardrobe's empty. The only sign of use is Root's purse, the contents a mixture of make-up and first-aid kit. No threat Shaw can see, which makes the back of her neck tingle.

"You're alone?" she asks. 

Root actually gasps in delight. "You were worried about me!"

"The last time I saw you take a bullet to your arm, you stayed down," Shaw retorts. "And I had some help from your _friend_ finding this place."

"I've got places to be, but she really wanted me to see a doctor first."

Ok, no more black leather jacket.

Root's T-shirt is short-sleeved, no bulk over the firmly wrapped bandages on her left upper arm that she's unpicking and unwinding as Shaw watches.

"They remove the bullet?" 

"Turns out I wasn't a good enough girl for that," Root says, hopping back onto the counter. 

She digs into her purse, holding up a pair of forceps. "But I know from experience you don't care about things like that."

Root describes the bullet's angle of trajectory and lodged depth in a flat voice that sounds like she's quoting someone else. Maybe it makes it easier for Root to stand the pain. Maybe she's already dosed up on something nice. Root doesn't flinch while Shaw goes fishing for metal in her arm.

"You're lucky," Shaw says. "All in one piece."

The hotel's less lucky. They're going to have to burn the towels.

"What happened to your right ear?" Shaw asks, threading a surgical needle. "You kept turning your head until I came around onto your left side."

"Control called it a stapedectomy," the distance in Root's voice shifts abruptly mid-sentence, back to her little-girl softness, "which is, I know, not your specialty. Don't worry, I don't have a prosthetic in my purse."

"Trust me, that's nothing you want me putting back in your head."

Root's ready to pass Shaw fresh dressings as soon as Shaw cuts the thread.

"You should know that I did check on you guys as soon as I could, but as it turned out you were busy escaping through New York City's Combined Sewer System."

"Not quite a clean getaway, but it worked."

Root giggles, which is a better reaction than Shaw'd gotten out of the guys after they'd finally pulled up out that manhole. Better than what you'd expect from someone who's just had a bullet removed.

She leans forward on the counter, her neck bent to put her grin in Shaw's face. "Not every day you get to blow up a bank vault, right, Shaw?"

"Tell me about it," Shaw says, and frowns when she notices herself smiling back. "Anything else?"

"Well, Control did spend the first seven hours of the interrogation alternately injecting me with an amphetamine and a barbiturate at thirty minute intervals."

"Did you bring any with you?" Shaw asks. "I can't tell anything without--"

Root swings her injured arm behind Shaw's back, gentling her collapse to the carpet, empty syringe in her other hand.

"That one's the barbiturate," Root says, like Shaw hadn't figured that one out already.

"Don't worry, you'll be running around again real soon. I'm flattered that you wouldn't easily let me go, but it's like I said, I've got places to be, planes to catch."

Shaw's tongue feels thick and her head feels heavy. Root's face is swimming in her field of vision, white teeth in the center of creeping black. Planes to catch, Shaw thinks.

"You can relax, Shaw. She's watching over you."

**Author's Note:**

> You can comment on my [LJ](http://threewalls.livejournal.com/375790.html) or my [DW](http://threewalls.dreamwidth.org/255812.html).


End file.
